“…Here’s what struck me: all this comes at precisely the time when our culture is growing weary of slick production and whatever’s new and is growing hungry for authentic presence and historical rootedness. Younger generations don’t want trendy engagement from the church; in fact, they’re suspicious of it. Instead they want truthfulness engagement with historical and theological solidity that enables meaningful interaction with transcendent reality. They want desperately to invest their lives in something worth dying for, not some here-today-gone-tomorrow fad.” -Tullian Tchividjian, Unfashionable
So…we are starting our church-wide small group off this week where all respective small groups will be going through the same book study…something we haven’t done since I’ve been going to Eternal Church…I’m pretty excited about it…there’s something about doing something together at a large level that interests me…I guess it’s the sense of community I feel while we are all doing the same thing…anywho…
We are going through a book called “Unfashionable” by Tullian Tchividjian. The main theme is about as Christians, we should live a life that’s countercultural, not trying to adapt to the world but in fact do the opposite. ”Live against the world, for the world” is how Tchividjian puts it. It looks promising and hopefully as a church we will benefit from the study.
But Skip (our pastor) got me thinking about how we should approach “Christian” books…specifically to Unfashionable… he said, if there’s anything we disagree on, we should re-look Scriptures in order to sharpen our beliefs. He said books should never be treated as a substitute from The Bible in any way.
Something else that got me thinking about this was a video I recently watched of Mark Driscoll criticizing the book, “The Shack”. Now I haven’t read the book so I can’t speak one way or another on whether I find it Scripturally sound or even if that’s what the book’s intention was in the first place. However, all this has reminded me that sometimes as members of a Christian culture, we read/see/experience/preach about things that seem benevolent and beneficial without ever seriously considering the subject matter and whether it’s theologically and biblically sound. If “Christian” messages (Worship, Messages, Books, Christian Music) we digest aren’t articulating Scripture, we need to question it and find out what the Scripture says about it.
Truth always wins out…and at the end of the day, isn’t that what we are all searching for in life anyway, truth?
